Sweet Dreams
by Scythers
Summary: Ken has nightmares because he's afraid of forgetting, and Daisuke just wants him to come back to bed. [Kensuke one-shot]


_Author Notes: This is a one-shot written for a fanfic challenge posted by my friend J. Specifically, one had to write "a fanfic with no dialogue but lots of non-verbal communication, and no sex... okay, but only a little." It was a nice exercise._

_A Kensuke set in some sort of AU future. Ken has nightmares because he's afraid of forgetting, and Daisuke just wants him to come back to bed._

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**Sweet Dreams**

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Nightmares. Again.

Daisuke knew after one glance at Ken's back. The empty bed was a little suspicious and indicative of bad dreams, sure, but then again geniuses were wont to get up in the middle of the night to look up the exact definition of "prophylactic" or the nineteenth number of pi. At least, Daisuke's genius was wont do to that. Really, he didn't want to know what Koushiro did around two o'clock in the morning.

For reference, a prophylactic (noun, _profu'laktik_) is either a "remedy that prevents or slows the course of an illness or disease" or a "contraceptive device consisting of a thin rubber or latex sheath worn over the penis during intercourse," while the nineteenth number of pi is 8. Daisuke knew these random, vaguely intellectual things like he did the slimness of Ken's fingers or the texture of Ken's hair. Usually he'd catch Ken flipping through manuals or surfing the Internet for the needed answers, lavender eyes wide and weary, and it took some enthusiastic bullshitting to coax the guy back into bed. It was then that Daisuke would learn the sought-after facts of the night, while also learning the sharp jut of a milk-pale shoulder or hipbone.

Ken was afraid that he'd forget everything. That much was obvious. Once, jokingly, Daisuke had said that it would be nice not to have someone correcting his poor grammar all of the time. The stricken look on Ken's face had been enough to shut him up. Open mouth, insert foot. Ken had buried himself in his grammar books for the night and Daisuke hadn't gotten any sex no matter how provocatively he strutted around the tiny study. At one point he went to get something to drink and found the door locked when he returned.

So Ken was afraid of forgetting everything as a weird side effect to not being ruled by evil anymore. He was also afraid of dying, being forgotten, and those shimmer-winged dragonflies whose stings were deadly according to a thick insect field guide. The nightmares were extensions of his fears; however, Ken was usually incoherent and uncooperative when pressed for details, so Daisuke gave up after the first few months they began living together. Daisuke and the words "gave up" don't seem to go together, but he could make Ken's hot tears stop in ways other than asking a million times over what had been going on inside the unconscious snake pit.

Right. Anyway. Nightmares. Again. Daisuke knew after one glance. Ken certainly wasn't studiously flipping through the world atlas book or pulling out his mother's worn, handwritten recipes. The capital of Iceland is Reykjavik; you need two tablespoons of vanilla extract if you want those muffins she used to bake every Sunday.

They had a kitchen—a meticulous and neat place that Daisuke insisted on keeping spotless, even though anything else he touched fell to ruin despite Ken's neatness—and in that kitchen there were the usual things: appliances, table, chairs, sink, range, and so on. Whenever Ken had had a nightmare, he would sit and straddle a kitchen chair and stare at the wall, his back turned to whoever came in after him. When he had had a nightmare, his spine became as taut as a bowstring and he bore this nervous habit of fiddling with his pajama top's loose cuffs. He didn't cry; if he did, the tears always dried up before Daisuke could get to them.

Daisuke hesitated at the threshold of the kitchen, his feet halfway on the living room's carpet and halfway on the cool tile floor. There was one window over the sink; the moon provided enough light to make things distinguishable in a hazy, dreamlike way. Usually Ken looked like he didn't want to be bothered. While he was leaning against the chair's back and being the picture of quiet contemplation, there was an underlying fierceness about his posture and a lurking violence about his fretting of the cuffs.

Sometimes Ken fought in his sleep when things were particularly bad, but the counseling and psychotropic drugs had cut back on the average number of bruises Daisuke sustained by morning's light. Daisuke didn't mind that sort of shit—he didn't care what his other friends thought, or even what his parents thought, so admonitions about the "abusive" relationship went in one ear and right out the other. But when Ken sat like that, fragile and furious all at once, he reminded Daisuke of those scary nights.

Ken looked like he didn't want to be bothered. Daisuke didn't care about that sort of body language either: if he wanted to do something, he did it, regardless of the rolling eyes or exasperated sighs or fiery glares afterwards. If he wanted Ken's pen or towel or attention, he got it and didn't give a damn about the consequences. But this incaution did not apply to him at two in the morning when the moonlight made everything hazy and dreamlike, and Ken's hard posture said _Do Not Touch_. Daisuke hesitated at the threshold, but then he stepped into the kitchen. It was late, he was tired, and he wanted Ken to be back in bed so those demons wouldn't be faced alone.

Nothing needed to be said. Daisuke slid his fingers around Ken's shoulders; frightened by their stoniness, he massaged until the rock melted under his igneous insistence. Ken sighed quietly and rolled his head back, dark eyes peering past dark bangs, but he didn't smile. His nightmares could feature any number of terrors from his past. In those dark eyes Daisuke could see a shadowy world of fear and regret sketched in jagged purple lines.

The regret was the worst: what did Ken regret? _Who _did he regret? Did he regret being here with Daisuke, being bothered like this? Did he regret his entire life? Where was his smile?

Daisuke didn't like to worry about himself; he wanted to reserve all of his concern for the people who he believed needed it more, as if he had some sort of priority complex making him selfless. But the notion that Ken regretted all of those illicit meetings of their youth, all those many words said, the sex, everything—it made Daisuke sick to his stomach. This was someone he had devoted so much time and energy and love to, someone who was sitting here right now and practicing stoicism, and he just wanted to see one godforsaken smile before he decided tears weren't overrated, wussy things.

Ken's lips twitched and pale hand came up to overlap Daisuke's. He shook his head. Daisuke knew this meant he didn't want to go back to bed yet; he wanted to stew in his fear and self-loathing for a few hours, maybe fall asleep on folded arms, and end up being drained and irritable during the following day. No, this was something Daisuke wasn't going to deal with. It was two o'clock in the morning and Daisuke wanted more than an indentation next to him in bed. His fingers interlaced with Ken's and he squeezed.

They stared at each other for twenty seconds before Ken looked away, blushing a little, the picture of relaxing demureness. The tension in his body weakened. Daisuke had won—again—because Ken hated to be stared at. His poor self-esteem made it a losing battle.

Maybe one day Ken would tell Daisuke the specifics about his dead brother, what had happened in the Dark Ocean, who Demon and Akiyama Ryo were, or why he really did become the Kaiser. Right now Daisuke could live instead with learning the chemical makeup of glucose (C6H12O6), the year Britain's Magna Carta went into effect (1215 AD), and how many angels were capable of dancing on the head of a pin (it depends, really, but there is quite a simple formula to figure it out at any given moment).

What did Ken learn tonight, if anything? His lips twitched again and then quirked into a smile, the distracted and easy sort, and his eyes shifted up to look past the bangs like before. The nervous fiddling of his cuffs ceased. Slim shoulders slackened and fell. Daisuke jumped on the opportunity to undo a few buttons on that greenish yellow pajama top. Ken didn't laugh, but he smiled broadly and pushed the errant hand away. There were better places for attending to those urges. The kitchen was reserved for when he had had a nightmare; the chair was reserved for stony sitting and silence and destruction of the crystal happiness erected in daylight.

Ken stood up and let Daisuke lead him back into the bedroom, and neither of them tried to count the number of steps it took to get there. They didn't care about the wall's thickness or how often their apartment building's principal was inspected. Daisuke had spent the night prior learning Ken's instep all over again; tonight he wanted to address the axillary cavity and the pinna after doing some more minor surgery.

It took twelve invisible stitches to lace up Ken's heart, but those threads would dissolve come the following night. For now, though, in spite of the inevitability of this happening all over again, Daisuke picked up the suture and needle, and got to work.

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**owari**


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